The present invention relates in general to ice cube storage apparatus, and more particularly to ice storage and dispensing bins for use with automatic ice making equipment to receive cube ice and store large quantities of the ice in a body of water as a slurry of ice and water in an insulated unrefrigerated storage chamber to make large quantities of stored ice cubes available for discharge into bags, receptacles, or ice-utilizing food processing equipment and the like.
Automatic ice making equipment involving reversible cycle refrigeration systems have gone into wide commercial use. In such systems, ice is produced in various forms during the normal refrigeration or freezing phase of the apparatus when condensed liquid refrigerant is evaporated from the evaporator, and the ice is discharged from the evaporator during the defrosting or harvesting phase when hot gaseous refrigerant is delivered directly from the compressor to the evaporator. One type of such reversible cycle ice making equipment produces ice in elongated tubular or annular cylindrical form, with the ice being discharged in such form during the harvesting phase and broken up, in part by impact in the trough portions of the ice making apparatus below the evaporators and also by the transporting screw auger which is conventionally used to convey the ice to a discharge location. The ice may be further broken into desirable sizes by ice breaking and separating machinery of known form.
Also, automatic ice making machines have been available which form large sheets of many interconnected ice cubes on approximately vertical mold surface of a bank of evaporators. At the conclusion of the freezing cycle of the machine, when the sheets or cube ice have been formed on the evaporator mold surfaces, the machine switches to a harvesting cycle wherein hot gaseous refrigerant is admitted to the evaporators to thaw the front bond holding the ice sheets to the evaporators, allowing the ice sheets to fall by gravity into a screw conveyor trough where the ice is transported to a discharge outlet. During the free fall of the ice sheets down the rather narrow passages into the trough, impact of portions of the sheets on parts of the machine and impact of the lower portions on the sheets on the trough and on ice already in the trough causes the ice sheet to break up into random size segments of small numbers of ice cubes in each segment. These small random size segments of small numbers of ice cubes are then further broken up into individual plural ice cubes during transportation of the same to a subsequent processing stage or by passing them through a special separating device which subdivides the small sheets into the individual ice cubes.
In both types of devices, the ice making machines have the capacity of producing large quantities of ice rapidly, and it becomes desirable or necessary in many installations to provide for storage of the ice in some kind of storage receptacle or bin, wherein a large mass of the ice cubes or fragments can be maintained in their separate cube or fragment form during storage and can be withdrawn from the storage facility as desired for packaging or for use. One type of cube or fragment ice storage facility which has been found to have advantages for storing the ice which minimizes mechanical refrigeration requirements is a water basin or chamber type receptacle, having a relatively deep body of water in which the ice is stored in floating condition. However, problems have encountered in reliably harvesting or withdrawing ice from this type of storage facility for all ranges of fill conditions from partially filled to full conditions.
Also, businesses which supply large quantities of bagged cube ice for retail sale in a given market area require great quantities of cube ice, which may be produced by a number of reverse cycle ice making machines of the type previously described, if means are provided to supply the cube ice to a common storage receptacle or bin from which the ice can be withdrawn in appropriate quantities as needed into bagging machines in an efficient and expeditious manner. In such installations, a large storage receptacle or bin is required in which a large mass of the ice cubes or fragments can be maintained in their separate cube or fragment form for the desired storage period and then be withdrawn into the packaging equipment as required. One of the particular problems has been the development of means for storing large quantities of such ice cubes or small ice fragments without their melting or refreezing over relatively long storage periods, without requiring very expensive and complex mechanical refrigeration systems for maintaining temperatures at appropriate levels where the ice can be properly stored.
It is also desirable in installations where ice cubes or fragment ice are needed in processing of foods, such for example in poultry processing lines and the like, to have available a unitary installation capable of producing large quantities of cube ice or fragment ice automatically and storing the ice when it is automatically produced so that it is readily available at all times to supply the food processing lines. It is therefore desirable to have a convenient large storage bin available for cube ice, with which automatic ice making machines can be associated to automatically transport the ice cubes being made by the automatic ice making machines to the storage bin so that a substantial quantity of ice is immediately available for use whenever required in the food processing line.
An object of the present invention, therefore, is the provision of an improved storage and dispensing bin for cube ice, designed to receive and store cube ice or the like produced by automatic ice making machines during the period following production by and discharge of the ice from the ice making machines until its use or packaging is required, wherein the ice cubes are stored in a body of water in a large basin or tank-like chamber as a very large mass of separate ice cubes which are continuously gently disturbed to move through predetermined paths about the storage chamber and are displaced vertically as well as horizontally to avoid lumping tendencies and prevent build up of lumps anywhere in the storage chamber.
Another object of the present invention is the provision of an improved storage and distributing bin for cube ice wherein the cube ice is maintained in floating condition in a fluid mixture or slurry of ice and water in a storage basin or chamber, and in which a plurality of skeleton type tubular screw conveyor devices rotate slowly to continuously gently disturb the ice cubes and displace them vertically and horizontally to disrupt tendencies of the ice cubes to lump together, and wherein the ice cubes are caused to gently migrate toward a discharge station for removal as desired from the storage chamber by a discharge screw mechanism.
Other objects, advantages and capabilities of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings illustrating a preferred embodiment of the invention.